When Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone celebrated his side’s epic win over Inter Milan on Wednesday night there were mud stains on the knees of his trousers.
He won’t sweat the dry cleaning bill ahead of Sunday’s game of the weekend against Barcelona because, as revealed in the six-part Amazon documentary made about him in 2022, he has an entire wardrobe full of identical black suits.
He’s incredibly superstitious and you wouldn’t back against him making sure he puts the cleaned suit from Wednesday on again for the rest of a Champions League competition that has now opened up nicely for him to reach the final.
The man in black has been the top-earning coach in Europe for most of his 12 years at Atletico. The argument that he isn’t worth it has always tripped on the same stone — he earns the club far more than they have to pay him.
Atletico, beaten in the 2016 Champions League final, have won 81 European Cup games and 50 of them have come under Simeone. Only three coaches have won more European Cup games at the same club: Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United (102), Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (83) and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City (56).
The win over Inter earned Atletico another €10million, and unless his team lose both quarter-final legs against Borussia Dortmund, and Barcelona win both their quarter-final games against PSG, then it will be Atletico and not Barça who play in the 2025 Club World Cup, bringing in another €50m for Atletico.
You can dislike his football —although the old ‘score one and defend’ style has long gone — and his occasional crotch-grabbing goal celebrations might offend some. But his achievements at Atletico cannot be questioned.
He was also right to complain for so long about the away goals rule which, had it not been scrapped, would have seen his team beaten on Wednesday.
That victory on penalties is right up there with his greatest hits. And maybe the genesis of it came four days earlier when his team lost 2-0 to third from bottom Cadiz who hadn’t won in their previous 23 games.
That loss put Simeone in his preferred territory — if no one gave his team much of chance before, because they were playing against an Inter team that had won 12 out of 12 in 2024, then after the defeat the cause was declared hopeless.
No one has mastered the art of utilising underdog status better, and Atletico produced a phoenix from the ashes performance.
His 32-year-old captain Koke, who has been average for much of the season, ran 17.5km and set-up the two goals. Antoine Griezmann returned after missing three games through injury and scored the opener, and substitute Memphis Depay scored his first goal in the Champions League for four years.
Simeone was prostrate in his technical area when Atletico missed a chance at the end of 90 minutes. But you can’t keep him down for long!
Is it Mbappe’s time to shine?
Euros Files’ bold (OK, not that bold) prediction that the Champions League will have a first-time winner this season is holding firm with three teams yet to triumph in the last eight and not drawn against each other.
Luis Enrique taking his Paris Saint-Germain team to Barcelona, along with Real Madrid v Manchester City, is the pick of the draw.
The Spanish coach won the Champions League in 2015 when he had the best player in the world at his disposal.
There were fall-outs with Lionel Messi along the way but they hugged in Berlin when Barca beat Juventus in the final. In Kylian Mbappe Enrique has the best player in the world at his disposal again, and there’s been some friction with him this season. Let’s see if it ends the same way as in 2015.
The draw everybody wanted – almost
Real Madrid did not want Manchester City in Friday’s draw and much less with the second leg away from the Santiago Bernabeu where they feel invincible.
But when Manchester City director Txiki Begiristain joked to Spanish TV ‘que pesado!’ (what a drag!) when asked about the prospect of having to face Real Madrid again, it perfectly illustrated that they didn’t want the Spaniards either.
On the minus side for City, Madrid can rest the weekend before the first leg as there are no league matches because of the Spanish Cup final. On the plus side for Pep Guardiola‘s team, if Vinicius, Jude Bellingham, Eduardo Camavinga or Aurelien Tchouameni pick up a yellow in that first game, they will miss the return leg.
Barca talent factory still going strong
Iker Casillas tells the story of how he was sitting at his school desk in 1997 as a 16-year-old when officials from Real Madrid came knocking on the classroom door.
They needed him to fly to Norway where the club had a goalkeeper crisis because of injuries to Bodo Illgner and Santi Canizares.
Casillas sat on the bench as Madrid lost 2-0 to Rosenborg.
Barcelona had a 16-year-old on the pitch on Tuesday night as Lamine Yamal starred in the win over Napoli.
His young team-mate Pau Cubarsi is not much older.
The centre back only turned 17 in January and produced a man-of-the-match display in what was his Champions League debut.
Cubarsi bossed Victor Osimhen for 90 minutes and three days later was called up to the Spain squad for the first time.
When Barcelona hit rock bottom financially, banning staff from printing in colour, shutting their club television channel down, hiring out the Camp Nou pitch for stag-party kickabouts, among other desperate measures; their detractors were quick with the ‘where’s your famous La Masia youth system now!’
Ultimately though, their capacity to churn out brilliant youngsters has been the only thing that has never faltered. Thanks to the kids, they are back in Europe’s top eight for the first time in four years.
